


falling down (under the pale moonlight)

by trevino



Series: harringrove songfics [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Songfic, gentle boys being in love, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27518014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trevino/pseuds/trevino
Summary: just let me hold you while you're falling apartjust let me hold you and we'll both fall down//or, the soundtrack of steve and billy's love story.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: harringrove songfics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011231
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	falling down (under the pale moonlight)

**Author's Note:**

> hi!
> 
> i've always been in love with songfics, or works inspired by music (which is probably obvious if you've read any of my other pieces). i wanted to try one-shots for a while, so this'll be a collection of various steve/billy fics- about falling in love, or being in love, or maybe even falling out of love, who knows- that each have a song to go along with them.  
> if you have any songs you'd like to see written into harringrove fics, please tell me! i'd love prompts like that.
> 
> as always, i love comments <3

_ You may need me there _

_ To carry all your weight _

_ But you're no burden, I assure _

_ You tide me over _

_ With a warmth I'll not forget _

_ But I can only give you love _

(ever the same ~ rob thomas)

Billy Hargrove is fire, and ice, and everything not-so-nice.

He’s explosive, and more often than not, the world burns to flames around him.

With Steve, though, the ticking time bomb within him doesn’t feel quite so dangerous. As if maybe, just maybe, he won’t be all alone in the wreckage.

It starts a little something like this:

_ To nearly everyone’s surprise, Billy Hargrove survives the Mind Flayer’s attack at the Starcourt Mall. Barely, of course, but he survives all the same— though with the throbbing feeling that hasn’t left his head, or the spiderweb of cuts that are barely beginning to scar across his chest, he almost wishes he hadn’t. _

_ He spends a month in the hospital, and another two being driven back-and-forth by Joyce, or Jonathan, or anyone else who offers, to the clinic for physical therapy sessions twice a week. With the help of The Party (which somehow, he became a part of after all), he moves all of his belongings out of the Hargrove house and into Chief Hopper’s cabin. The police officer had taken up residence, along with his daughter El, or Jane, or whatever, at the Byers house, so it was vacant for the time being.  _

_ It wasn’t a peaceful move, but he didn’t expect it to be. His father refused to let him leave at first, instead insisting that he stay home and work until he “made up for” all of the trouble he had caused. But Jim Hopper had shown up and stared him down, eyes steely and one hand on his gun. _

_ Neil Hargrove left him alone after that. _

_ He still has a semester and a half of high school left to complete, but due to his injuries (and a surprisingly solid track record with good grades), his teachers are lenient with him. He gets his work done, helps Hopper with paperwork, and babysits the kids to make some extra money on the side.  _

_ So life goes on, albeit not at all the same as before. He’s without a car— the Camaro had suffered even more damage than he himself had in the “incident” (at least, that’s what the government files said), so he was more stationary than he had been since age 15. It sucked, but he was getting used to that. _

_ He’s getting used to everything else too— The Party seems to almost enjoy having him around, Joyce Byers practically considers him a son of her own, and he’s saving up enough money to hopefully get the hell out of Hawkins after graduation. Life’s weird, that’s for sure, but not as difficult as he remembers. He’s even starting to feel like he has friends. _

_ Friends his own age, no less. Nancy’s still not the biggest fan of him, but Billy doesn’t exactly yearn for her company either. Jonathan, though, is a different story altogether; they bond over cigarettes (and hiding the habit from Mama Byers, hypocrite as she is) and intersecting tastes in music. Max’s always enjoyed being around Will, too, so he spends a good many afternoons at the Byers house keeping an eye on the two rugrats and teaching Jonathan how to roll a joint “the California way.” _

_ And then, there’s Steve. _

_ That’s the friendship he wasn’t expecting to find, but the one he’s most grateful for. _

_ In the time following their fight in the Byers’ living room so many months ago, they had kept their distance, and Billy decided that was for the best. After all, how exactly do you tell the guy you beat up that you didn’t realize it was him, that you imagined your father’s face instead of his, that you only kept punching because you hoped he’d get angry enough to kill you? _

_ Simply put, there’s no good way to say that. _

_ Summer came, though, and Billy and Steve saw more of each other as they carted their respective children around. They exchanged pleasantries (though Billy’s were often laced with enough profanity to make a woman faint) and were reasonably civilized towards each other. _

_ Then, Billy became the Mind Flayer’s host, and everything went to shit. _

_ So when the monster nearly ripped him to shreds, Billy didn’t have many thoughts in his head, save for two. _

_ One:  _ I hope I get to see my mom in Heaven.

_ Two _ : I wish I had apologized to everyone. Especially Steve.

_ He wakes up, though, and regrets the first wish, but takes full advantage of the second one. He apologizes to all of the kids in turn, Max first and Lucas last, because that one took a lot more confidence than he thought he’d ever muster. He apologizes to Hopper and Joyce, too, and even Susan, though he wished she had done the same to him. _

_ Steve’s last on his list. _

_ He’s not sure he even deserves the right to apologize. He knows he doesn’t deserve forgiveness. _

_ Regardless, in late September, he sits on the couch in Hopper’s empty cabin, picks up the phone, and dials Steve’s home number. He tries to ignore how much his hands are shaking. _

“Hey, Steve, uh, it’s Harg- it’s Billy. Can you swing by the cabin in a bit? I want to talk to ya,”  _ he says. There’s the sound of a stunted breath through the phone, but Steve recovers quickly, and replies— _

“Sure thing, Bills. I’ll be right over. See you in ten.”

_ The line goes cold, then, and Billy puts the phone back on the receiver.  _

_ Ten minutes, and Steve’ll be there. And Billy has so much to say, he’s not even sure the words will fit in his brain. (His short-term memory’s been fuzzy, since the incident, but he probably can’t blame it solely on that.) _

_ Steve arrives quickly, but it feels like a lifetime. He lets himself in, as all of them are wont to do at the cabin, and finds Billy sitting tensely on the sofa. _

“You good, man?”  _ Steve asks, sitting down in the reclining chair across from him. _

“Yeah, uh,”  _ Billy trails off, already feeling more apprehensive than he thought possible.  _ “I wanted to apologize.”

“Oh?”

“Listen, man, I was a jackass, and I beat your face in, and I shouldn’t have,”  _ Billy starts to ramble. _ “I’ve apologized to all of the kids, and they took it surprisingly well— even Lucas, though Mike still thinks I’m a shit— but I knew I owed you one too. You didn’t deserve any of what I did to you, and I’m really, uh, sorry about it.”  _ He hangs his head, knowing that if he meets Steve’s gaze, he’ll probably burst into tears. _

_ (That’s been one of the entirely-unexpected side effects of nearly dying at the hands of a demonic entity. He somehow learned, or remembered, how to cry.) _

“If it makes you feel any better, Mike thinks I’m pure garbage too, even though his sister broke up with  _ me _ , not the other way around,”  _ Steve offers with a light tone, though Billy barely barks out a laugh.  _

“Seriously, though, Hargrove, thanks,”  _ Steve says.  _ “You saved our lives so you’re pretty much forgiven anyway. But it means a lot.”

_ The two boys sit in silence, then, and Billy releases some of the tension in his shoulders before Steve speaks again. _

“Wanna watch Star Wars?”

_ And with that, they’re friends. Past forgotten, or at least somewhat forgiven. _

_ It doesn’t take much time, then, for it to turn into more than that. _

_ They spend nearly every weekend night at the cabin together, alone save for some weed, beer, and shitty movie reruns on the television. They go over to Steve’s fairly often, too, because his parents aren’t ever home, but one day, Steve picks him up from the cabin and they head in a different direction than his Loch Nora home. _

_ Before he knows it, they’re pulling into a parking lot on the edge of town, near one of the two competing car shops in Hawkins. It’s after hours, maybe 7:30 at night, so it’s empty, save for one thing.  _

_ Billy’s Camaro, all fixed up and beautiful as ever (maybe more so than before), sits parked in one of the spaces. _

_ He thought he’d survived a lot up until this point, but damn, seeing his car again nearly gave him a heart attack. Steve helped him out of his Beemer, letting him lean onto his shoulder since his balance still wasn’t where it needed to be, and walked him towards the Camaro. _

“You like it?” _ the other boy asks, and before he knows it, Billy is turning and pressing his lips against Steve’s lips in lieu of a “ _ thank you.”

_ Words never came easy to him, anyway, so an action seemed to do the job. _

_ There’s panic, afterward, when Billy realizes exactly what he’s just done. Kissing Steve ( _ King Steve _ , he reminds himself in the midst of his panic) wasn’t exactly part of his “becoming a better Billy” schtick. _

_ When Steve kisses him back, though, and Billy can feel the curve of the Camaro’s frame against his spine, he realizes that maybe it wasn’t such a horrible sign of thanks after all _ .

So, after a lot of pent-up anger, and internalized homophobia, and misplaced fear of retaliation (they were both terrified of Joyce and Hopper’s response, but the two had just laughed and said “It’s about time”), Billy and Steve find themselves in love.

They lay in bed together one night, at the cabin after all the kids had crashed in the living room in their respective sugar comas. Their hands are intertwined, bodies pressed up against each other as if yearning for an impossibility of closeness.

“You know, I’m pretty certain you saved me,” Billy says, in a quiet moment of honesty. They’re not the most outwardly affectionate couple— a lifetime of stigma surrounding this situation hanging over their heads— but in these moments, alone with only each other, their love is ever-present.

“Me? No,” Steve responds, pressing a soft kiss to the mess of Billy’s hair where the boy rests his head on his chest. “You’re my home, Billy. You saved me.”

And maybe, saving each other is the best salvation they could’ve ever hoped for.


End file.
